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In Syria, al Jazeera’s Credibility Implodes

The guy who runs al Jazeera’s Syrian coverage is the brother of a SNC bigwigIn Syria, al Jazeera’s Credibility Implodes

by PETER LEE

Over the last couple days the Syrian army has moved into the Baba Amr district of Homs.
The action is Syria’s Tiananmen.

The Western shorthand for Tiananmen is “authoritarian regime reveals its true monstrous face to the world and its own citizens by trampling on helpless pro-democracy demonstrators.”
Maybe so, but in the Chinese official political lexicon Tianenmen was “a demonstration of state power against a dissident group meant to illustrate the absolute authority of the state and the utter marginalization of the protesters.”

“Then there is Homs or, more accurately, the Baba Amro district of Homs, which has turned into a symbol of resistance, armed and otherwise, to Assad’s rule.
“Assad’s Western and domestic opponents have put the onus on Russia and China for enabling the Homs assault by their veto of the UN Security Council resolution, a toothless text that would have called for Assad to step down.
“However, the significance of the veto was not that it allowed Assad to give free rein to his insatiable blood lust for slaughtering his own citizens, as the West would have it.
“The true significance of the veto was the message that Russia and China had endorsed Assad as a viable political actor, primarily within Syria, and his domestic opponents, including those holding out in Baba Amro, should think twice before basing their political strategy on the idea that he would be out of the picture shortly thanks to foreign pressure.
“It is difficult to determine exactly what the government’s objectives are for Baba Amro. Hopefully, they are not simply wholesale massacre through indiscriminate shelling.
“Recent reports indicate that the government, after a prolonged and brutal softening-up, has decided to encircle the district, send in the tanks, and demonstrate to the fragmented opposition that ‘resistance is futile’, at least the armed resistance that seems to depend on the expectation of some combination of foreign support and intervention to stymie Assad and advance its interest.
“Whatever the plan is, the Chinese government is probably wishing that the Assad regime would get on with it and remove the humanitarian relief of Homs from the “Friends of Syria” diplomatic agenda.
…
“The message that Syria and China hope the domestic opposition will extract from Homs in the next few weeks is that, in the absence of meaningful foreign support, armed resistance has reached a dead end; it is time for moderates to abandon hope in the local militia or the gunmen of the FSA and turn to a political settlement.
“To Syria’s foreign detractors, the message will be that the genie of armed resistance has been stuffed back into the bottle thanks to “Hama Lite”; and the nations that live in Syria’s neighborhood might reconsider their implacable opposition to Assad’s continued survival.”

I think this interpretation of events is pretty spot on.

And I wish somebody would address the issue of who were the 4000 who stayed to the end in Baba Amr, “a working class district of 100,000”: Was it the core of the resistance? People who couldn’t or wouldn’t leave when the Syrian army tightened the noose? Any second thoughts on that botched exfiltration of that Sunday Times reporter that got him out a couple days before the Syrian army moved in (and moved the journalists out) but apparently got 13 people killed?

Was Homs a) a carnival of slaughter unleashed by a madman against his own citizens? b) a bloody exercise in Fallujah-style collective punishment meant to terrify Syria’s Sunni majority into submission? c) a brutal and effective coordinated military/security/political/diplomatic campaign meant to isolate and marginalize the rebels and convince Syrians that the insurrection has no hope of foreign succor or domestic success?

Inquiring minds want to know.
It looks like they won’t find out from al Jazeera.

The main event, or what should be the main event, for Western observers of Syria is the messy implosion of Al Jazeera’s credibility. Somebody disgruntled with the diktat of channel management that the Syrian revolution (at least the SNC version of it) “must be televised” leaked some raw footage of Homs coverage and interviews staged for maximum anti-regime effect.

As’ad AbuKhalil, proprietor of the Angry Arab newsblog, hails from the atheist/Marxist/feminist quadrant and is no friend of the Bashar regime. He had this to say about recent trends in programming on Syrian state TV:

“It seems that Syrian regime had agents among the rebels; or it seems that the Syrian regime obtained a trove of video footage from Baba Amru. They have been airing them non-stop. They are quite damning. They show the correspondent or witness (for CNN or from Aljazeera) before he is on the air: and the demeanor is drastically different from the demeanor on the air and they even show contrived sounds of explosions timed for broadcast time…
“PS This is really scandalous. It shows the footage prior to Aljazeera reports: they show fake bandages applied on a child and then a person is ordered to carry a camera in his hand to make it look like a mobile footage. It shows a child being fed what to say on Aljazeera.”

“This is rather explosive. You know how low Aljazeera has sunk when Syrian regime TV stations have a field day with the shoddy journalism and fabrication procedures of Aljazeera. It seems that people inside Aljazeera have leaked raw footage and pre-air reports to someone in Syrian regime TV. I am not surprised of the leak at all: I am in contact from people inside Aljazeera who are disgusted by the propaganda work of the network in the last few months. … I know how those things work and they know that I know. The footage that are being shown show staging of events of calling a civilian an “officer” in the Syrian army, of faking injuries and feeding statements to people before airtime, etc. Aljazeera seems to be writing its own professional obituary. I don’t know how it can really resurrect itself again. It is mortally wounded. I know that there are people in the network who are pained about what is happening but royal orders are royal orders in the network and no one dare to disobey. I am told that orders came down to the effect that no half-position would be tolerated and that categorical adoption of the Qatari foreign policy on Syria is a job requirement.”

Actually, information about Al Jazeera’s Syria biases had already reached the English language media on February 24 (and Syria watchers when Josh Landis posted it on his Syria Comment blog), when an article in al Akhbar reported on some e-mails hacked off al Jazeera’s servers by the Syrian regime’s “electronic army”:

“The major find to be made public was an email exchange between anchorwoman Rula Ibrahim and Beirut-based reporter Ali Hashem. The emails seemed to indicate widespread disaffection within the channel, especially over its coverage of the crisis in Syria.
…
“Ibrahim … protested that she had ‘been utterly humiliated. They wiped the floor with me because I embarrassed Zuheir Salem, spokesperson for Syria’s Muslim Brothers. As a result, I was prevented from doing any Syrian interviews, and threatened with [a] transfer to the night shift on the pretext that I was making the channel imbalanced.’
“Ibrahim also spoke of how Syrian activists invited onto Al Jazeera use terms of sectarian incitement on air, ‘which Syrians understand very well.’
…
“They also confirmed an allegation Ibrahim had reportedly made in one of her emails: That Ahmad Ibrahim, who is in charge of the channel’s Syria coverage, is the brother of Anas al-Abdeh, a leading member of the opposition Syrian National Council. He allegedly stopped using his family name to avoid drawing attention to the connection.”

Yes, emphasis added. The guy who runs al Jazeera’s Syrian coverage is the brother of a SNC bigwig.
The requisite ironic coda (and what should be the obituary for al Jazeera as a serious news outfit, at least as far as its current Syrian coverage is concerned) is contained in this observation:

“However, the scoop did not attract the attention that had been hoped for. Like other official Syrian media, the channel is not widely watched and has suffered a loss of viewer confidence.
“Thus the report was barely noticed, and Al Jazeera itself completely disregarded it.”

Yes, news you can report just by walking into your newsroom; that’s too far for al Jazeera (and, probably CNN).
PETER LEE has spent thirty years observing, analyzing, and writing on international affairs. Lee can be reached at peterrlee-2000@yahoo.com

Little noticed or mentioned but...every since the original and long-serving Director was 'removed' a few months ago, and replaced by a young member of the Quatari Royal Family, AJ's editorial slant is far from where it originally was - and more in line with US Policy and reactionary Arab policy. Bahrain also get the kit gloves. The old Director was a Palestinian and trained journalist. The new Director has never had any jobs or familiarity with journalism nor TV broadcasting. Wonder how he got the job...connections and control....obviously. Nothing lasts!

“If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” - Frederick Douglass"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild

"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn

Al Jazeera did some good coverage of Egypt but when it came to Libya they were bloody dreadful.

AJ has done and still does some great journalism and reportage. However, it has become more politicized and always was, a wee bit - but now it is much greater since the directorship change [I'll try to get the date!]. They are not even handed and at times, especially lately, I've been shocked by their slant on a few issues - they seem to be coming directly from the Royal Family that funds [and now directly runs] the station. Their documentaries are almost without equal on broadcast or streamed media, at times; ditto much of their reporting - but they do seem to now have some red lines not to cross or to cross in a very one-sided way. It shouldn't be run and owned by a royal family - but that is not going to change. Its a mixed bag and you have to sometimes remember that they are trying not to upset the Quatari Royals or towing their line vis-a-vis some matter or country. NB The change in directors occurred on 21 Sept 2011.

“If there is no struggle there is no progress. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” - Frederick Douglass"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws. - Mayer Rothschild

"Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience! People are obedient in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity, war, and cruelty. Our problem is that grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem!" - Howard Zinn

Al Jazeera exodus: Channel losing staff over ‘bias’

Qatari TV Channel Al Jazeera is gripped with loud resignations. Key employees in its Beirut office have reportedly resigned over the “biased” stance the television sticks to.Al Jazeera has recently lost several of its key employees in the Beirut office: Managing Director Hassan Shaaban resigned his post, Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar reported on Sunday. This follows a series of resignations by the television’s staff in the office, including correspondent Ali Hashem and producer Mousa Ahmad. While little is known about the resignation of Hassan Shaaban, other than he quit over the biased policy of the channel in covering the Arab Spring – especially events in Syria and Bahrain – there is more information concerning correspondent Ali Hashem. The latter resigned his post last Tuesday and emails leaked by the Syrian hackers showed his frustration over the channel’s policies in covering the events in Syria, Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar quoted a source in the station as saying. "You can check the emails he sent to his colleague, Rula Ibrahim, to know his position which changed after the station refused to show photos he had taken of armed fighters clashing with the Syrian Army in Wadi Khaled. Instead [Al Jazeera] lambasted him as a shabeeh [implying a regime loyalist],” the source said. The reporter is also said to have been embarrassed with the channel’s refusal to cover the uprising in Bahrain. “[In Bahrain], we were seeing pictures of a people being butchered by the 'Gulf's oppression machine', and for Al Jazeera, silence was the name of the game,” according to the source.Hassan Shaaban and Ali Hashem were not the only Al Jazeera employees upset with the channel’s policies to the extent they were ready to resign. Recent weeks also saw a resignation of Moussa Ahmad, the channel’s producer in Beirut. Ahmad accused Al Jazeera of bias and said that the channel had totally ignored the referendum on the new constitution in Syria.According to the newspaper’s source, the exodus of the staff of Al Jazeera is caused by the fact that most of its reporters come from prestigious schools of journalism which teach against biased reporting and also see the truth by themselves as field reporters.Journalist and author Afshin Rattansi, who used to work for Al Jazeera, told RT that, “sadly”, the channel has progressed from being the region’s revolutionary channel for openness to a one-sided voice for Qatari government’s stance against Bashar al-Assad.“It is very disturbing to hear how Al Jazeera is now becoming this regional player for foreign policy in a way that some would arguably say the BBC and others have been for decades,” he said. “If Al Jazeera Arabic is going to take a war-like stance after [the] Qatari government, this would be very ill.”“There is the courage of these journalists, however, in saying ‘Look, this is not the way we should be covering this. There are elements of Al-Qaeda in there,’” Rattansi concluded. “The way Al Jazeera Arabic has covered the story of Syria is completely one-sided.”Journalists and anti-war activist Don Debar, who has also had Al Jazeera experience, confirmed that the station has been heavily guided by the Qatari government in its policies. “That has been ongoing since last April of 2011,” Debar told RT. “The head of the bureau in Beirut quit, many other people quit because of the biased coverage and outright hand of the government in dictating editorial policy over Libya, and now Syria.”http://rt.com/news/al-jazeera-loses-staff-335/

"I think it would be a good idea." Mahatma Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization.

The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it. Karl Marx.

"Well, he would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies, 1963, replied Ms Rice Davies when the prosecuting counsel pointed out that Lord Astor denied an affair or having even met her.

Looks like "the coalition of the willing" will no longer have to target Al Jazeera reporters and offices for lethal missile strikes.

In reality, Al Jazeera will soon be a fully paid up member of MSM, whilst still serving as a supposed "propaganda" bogeyman for the neocon fools of Faux News & for western political leaders.

"It means this War was never political at all, the politics was all theatre, all just to keep the people distracted...."
"Proverbs for Paranoids 4: You hide, They seek."
"They are in Love. Fuck the War."Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon

"Ccollanan Pachacamac ricuy auccacunac yahuarniy hichascancuta."The last words of the last Inka, Tupac Amaru, led to the gallows by men of god & dogs of war

ZEINAB came to syrian tv and showed her ID and said she was still alive.Al Jazeera and AL Arabia showed her parents crying , they showed her coffin , they showed people with Banners saying : we are all zeinab AL Housni .

Amnesty International was very uncomfortable for giving false News and sent this report

Mother Agnes Merriam al-Saleeb, head of the Catholic Media Center team which visited Syria and witnessed the reality of the situation on the ground, said on Friday that there's an environment that is nurturing and is in charge of nameless gunmen possessing advanced firearms and ammo, instructing them to vandalize and terrorize citizens and security forces in Syria

"I think it would be a good idea." Mahatma Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization.

The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it. Karl Marx.

"Well, he would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies, 1963, replied Ms Rice Davies when the prosecuting counsel pointed out that Lord Astor denied an affair or having even met her.

Hagag Salama, al-Jazeera correspondent in Egypt since 2003, has resigned live on air on Dream TV channel, stating that the lack of professionalism by al-Jazeera and its incitement for civil war among Egyptians are the main reasons why he decided to end his career with the Qatar-based network.

"I think it would be a good idea." Mahatma Gandhi, when asked what he thought of Western civilization.

The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it. Karl Marx.

"Well, he would, wouldn't he?" Mandy Rice-Davies, 1963, replied Ms Rice Davies when the prosecuting counsel pointed out that Lord Astor denied an affair or having even met her.